visiting the skate board park first attempt

This last saturday Rex (the photographer) and I went to the Marginal way Skateboard park.It was a sunny sunny day, and we were ? ? where did the skaters go...? confused to why they were not gathered at under the viaduct.We were hoping to talk to a bunch of them if we could take pictures and collaborate with them while I dance in the pool with them..., a dream. There was about only  two skaters looking nervous that I was approaching them.(ofcourse I am decked out in white kabuki makeup and a costume, pretty scary)and one other skater, who was cought in the middle of all of this funny  artsy- fartsey business and felt pressured by the situation who had to dissappear in a flash of seconds, I GUESS I UNDERSTOOD IT MUST HAVE BEEN A LITTLE STRANGE.None the less, we got a kind- of- a- permission from the two boys and I thought they were nice to let us crash their prescious practice space. One of them told me that since its such a nice sunny day,everyone was at all the outdoor parks, like the one up near the zoo.......
Rex set up a tripod and I just started dancing.It was cold in an icy way, this concrete realm...The two of the skaters were cautious, I can sense them.It felt even colder...I could feel it in my shoulders, arms, and down my spine...I wished there were many of them, so I could talk to some of them, one of them, to the ones who do not mind something strange, curious, and to give us a chance,I wished at least even a strong reaction , to say " hey, get out!" to start a dialogue. but ofcourse we stepped into their territory.I  definitelywould like to come back again.SLowly, once in a long wHile,.. the skaters skated a quick passing -by, which made me excited.But  it felt lonely to me, More please...!  it was too empty.A beer-bellied guy with a beer appeared yelling something at me, something about making fun of a mime, or something.Oh, goodness, great, drunkenness again... he continiously yelled something rude to me, which I couldnt understand, and to Rex too, I kept dancing, just a little more, see what happens... but the two skaters took a BIG BREAK since he started to poke fun at us.What a delicate situation..! I felt like I learned something this day.. and more inpired to continue to come talk to them, definitely when all of their community is around! Ok, to not seem to bummed, a butoh video of the day is: Atsushi Takenouchi san. I met him briefly in NY last year.A gentle and kind man, a masterful dancer.

Improvisation and training in the pArK

I have not kept up with the blog. I HAVE kept up with the training,on the rainy mornings I walked to the park on the 44th in Fremont and trained under the roof over the restrooms.I missed about 4days when it was raining SO HARD outside and I was under the weather.Improvisation with Joshua has been every other day,even though it has been every day for sometime... sometimes if we are tired, we only do it for even 5 minutes (! ) just to keep it going.....and now with an additional new improvising friend every week( once a week starting last week) with an artist named Christian Swenson, my joy has expanded to more possibilities to learn! He calls himself the HUMAN JAZZ and he is like an - ipod from space-rythm- man. ( did I spell rythm correct?I have a wrong feeling...) He is tall and like a tree and I am small like a beansprout so it must be entertaining to watch us go at it.We improvised until out of breath and laughing, last friday at where he teaches, the fine arts building of Seattle University. We also took turns with short solos and so we could observe each other, and eventually jump in. He teaches movement to actors and working with him and talking with him, he must be a warm and attentive, fun teacher. I also wanted to teach, teach and teach well, but had a complex for a long time until last two years..I have been teaching here and there over the last 5-6 years, but I realized a lot of things with sharing my learnings from my wonderful mentors recently.I always felt awkward, that I perform vocals, Butoh, physical theater and improvisation also, and could not come to terms with how to teach all of this in one workshop. But that eventually and organically took shape through my Butoh trainings and from my own explorations and also burrowing from other teachings.But more importantly, I learned things like, how to fascilitate the best I could to the learner/absorber /receiver to having them experience and discover on their own thru their 5 senses and observation, and by giving them space and enough time, to have them experiment with themselves and watch eachother.These are from my mentors like Shinichi-Iova -Koga and Minako Seki.Sometimes I found a lot of times my habits or difficulties more clearly by watching my students go through the excersizes I do my own, and re-discover where to work on.Or, sometimes the student is more experienced then I and give me a more perspective to how it could be more interesting, efficient or much easier communication for the tools to get there.Anyway, I have recently danced in the evenings ad had an interesting experience.In the evening, by the canal where all the Adobe business buildings are lit up inside, I could see everthing from below( where I was, the office building was surrounding on both sides , kind of like an ampu-theater), and also the quiet gliding boats on the water in front of me, and the shadowy dark figures of people constantly rushing by to get home for dinner.It feels like a veil, invisible and internal.It was kind of nice feeling.

Kids and Dads and Moms and I at Kerry Park

I was supposed to take 3 buses to get to this park but instead I walked a WHOLE LOT and some hills to get to this wonderful City View park on Queen Anne hill. The Photo however on this blog is not the same park photo.It was another frosty adventure with my hands getting stiff but I felt comforted by the childrens laughter and roars and Mothers and Fathers were all out too.Is this the time of year, they are ALL OUT THERE?TOGETHER? It was strange and lovely sight becuase you dont see them all there so frequented. (! )
I heard all the kids conversations as I danced, I must have put myself in the perfect audio-acoustic space in the whole park where it was STEREO.I gently absorbed in their conversations and calling outs to each other as I moved.They said some mean things to each other.And very cute things too.One of the DAd was getting very excited with his Boy kids playing the basket ball shoots and forgot about the tiny little girl.She was saying things that when a person feel betrayed.Today I felt slightly worn out and for some reason,self-conscious when a little child was staring... So much that I started to make my dance PG and PG-13 and not so scary or freaky as normal people say when they see Butoh... at some point I even pretended to be practicing chi-gong and actually REALLY started to practice CHi-gong, and I had to SNAP MY SELF OUT.It was a strange day.. I feel the frozen stiff back muscles, and my right knee getting to me a little bit.People above the park was snapping a lot of photos of the view and I can even hear their conversations Stereo.I had fun once I started to get in the element :) The day was also nice because the sun was out.I am looking forward to the NEw YEars.. and I want to get back to my Aikido classes in Janurary that I started with the combination of my trainings in the mornings.. There are so much I would like to do..!!! Thankyou for today. Hiyaaaaaaaah! ( invisible kick in the cold crisp air )

December 23rd until now which is the 28th

I just came back from the training in Fremont Canal park.The sun is so warm and soft but my hands got numb and stiff.Goodness, to keep up with a blog is very challenging.One of my hero and neurologist Kenichiro Mogi does this every morning the minute he wakes up in the morning,he plugs the chord from his personal computer and start writing his "Qualia Journal"right at his bedside!He writes about his things from previous day in the next morning.He writes down the things he had experienced, the people he met, and many ideas that crossed his mind from the day before.He claims that while you are asleep, the brain processes unconsciously and organizes it that by the time you wakeup in the morning, your experiences feel much more ripened when you woke up in the morning. (!) I like the fact that he writes his blog as a "experience" output as putting preserving purpose and clear "meaning "to what he had done, a tangible data. Today, I worked with pREcariOUs bALaNce, and stretching the body parts as far out as possible.precaious balance very very difficult. It is quite irritating and interesting to see how the body wants to protect so instantly to not freely fall to the edge.Over and over, the body will try to organize immediately a pattern or habit for the easier, safer way... I remember practicing in a riverwater back in August, and it was the practice of upper body being the edge of balance and the lower body is stabilized walking in the water up till the hip.it felt impossible becuase as soon as I fall, the lower body has no weight , grasp or stabilization becuase of the moving water, and when I fell, I REALLY FELL, my legs up in the air,splashing and swallowing tons of water, over and over again. In that way, I felt that was more sincere to the body's experience of being Off- balance..
The STRETCHING THE BODY in torture style- to the maximum limit ( it ended up that way...its hard to breathe, maintaining the balance, and the face starts grimacing unless you start smiling insanely, and then the endorphins KICK In!! and you can go much much more further.. and even beyond.. its a fight with the lazy and easy-going mind that wants to give in and say " nice! ok, thats enough " I wanted to go beyond this person, Haruko with ego....judging or whining or doubting or getting bored in the head!
OK! going back in time the 23rd I went to the Occidental park again to dance.The theme for me that training was "hanging body " and the "haramu" body, the body that can pregnate images, again from the tanden.This time something airy, smoky, or fog, soft movements utilizing the connections from the earth and loosening of the imaginary strings on the head and the limbs.It felt the time slow down so much that I noticed the details of the environment.Sometimes I must be aware that so I do not slipp into the inner sensation too only that it becomes the "oogi-yummi- man" which becomes completely unaware of the surroundings, and where you are in the condition of the image you assigned for your body, and just" I feel good dance", its a lonely, seem like a private thing to watch from the outside.... That day, I went across the street to the Elliot Bay Book store and researched through some black and white photograph books and to my surprize, I found one of the rarest book,Eikoh Hosoe's photography book of Hijikata,"KAMAITCHI" . Its strange I was looking for it for years, and then forgotten, and then lost interest, and then desired it again recently, and here it was, buried in the photography section, seemingly forgottened,I was shocked and excited that I immediately had the book on hold.. strange that when your mind is on a one track focus, you can find even the seemingly impossible things right away.....!! This day, the musician was a bit pushy while I was focused on my training and was talking to me, that I snapped finally, and I surprized myself.I have been experiencing some homeless people commenting, murmuring, watching, and cussing even,yelling, and encouraging me too, which I enjoy.. but this person was NOT interested in my dance....
The next training day was the 25th!!! at the 3rd Ave NW park , across the street from OH NO MR BILLS park. The X-mas day..! There were many people out in the park, playing ball games and frisbee. I felt very very very cold for doing too subtle movements so I thrashed around!Jumped and hopeed around and it was surprizingly a difficult to focus day....! Rex has not been with me for the photps the last couple of sessions, and I miss him. He got too busy from his work, and we spoke of maybe working together in a skating rink next year, through his nephew's hanging ground.I feel grateful for the sun..! my health,my friends, Rex, the people who commented on the facebooks, and my health, my supportive husband Joshua!!! I will keep going and going to my December challenge..! Love, hARuKO

adventures with cold mornings and Rex

This is the December of 17th, thursday and Rex clicked away all these photographs, its been my tenth session so far.Today we were under the incredible view of the aurora village that is over the lake Union, and it was one of the warmer winter mornings! This here, the picture of the toilet paper in my nose dancing, was one of the painfullest coldest mornings shot by the Fremont canal in bewteen the Adobe office buildings. Rex has used his architectural eye and also playfulness ( he is an architect! ) and continued clicking even when his hands were numb with cold, and my nose wouldnt stop running and running and so I danced with it for a while. I cannot seem to put the pictures elegantly ( Sorry Rex..! ) on this blog without the ugly white spaces...I think I will get the hang of it gradually... so the photo continues below!!
I have so far danced at the Downtown Olympic Sculptural park, in front of the beautiful St. Ignatius church in the Seattle University campus, the Lincoln Reservoir park next to the Velocity Dance Center,In front of the Asian Art Museum, and Occidental Park in Pioneer Square among other places... If anyone out there have more ideas, I would LOVE to get suggestions. For Rex, it would be great if the places have interesting light and design-space possibilities too.I am learning from him about all these things, the design and architechtural perspectives, the lights, shadows, shapes in the black and white photographs. I am very honored!!! The day he could not come was the Occidental park one, which day was it... yes, the 16th...! It was such pouring rain, I splashed from puddle to puddle, my eye makeup was running into my eye and could not see very well. But the sound of the drumming rain, and numbness of cold let me slipped into a state of very clear, pin-drop awareness and I wasin a place my tramatic self was silenced.It was a brief moment but how LOVELY it was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had another joyful moment today when I was under the aurora bridge dancing, and my body memories from my movement brought feelings of pain/suffreing and a sense of release and somethinglike acceptance at the same time,again, a brief moments of this journey rushed by.
Thankyou Rex, for today, and thankyou friends, for some comments already! yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.